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Christina McNight wrote over at her blog, following the Tucson shootings:

While I am beyond horrified at the killing of a nine year old girl – BEYOND HORRIFIED – I am equally as horrified at the people who seem to think that she was the only innocent person who was injured or killed that day. ALL of the people in the parking lot on Saturday were innocent. NONE of them had “done anything”.Her words got me thinking. This has always been my reaction to other events involving the death of young children--that it was tragic, yes, and that they were innocent, yes, but that there are a lot of tragic deaths and everyone is innocent.

Yet with Christina Taylor Greene, I've responded tragically. Christina is right that nobody in that parking lot had done anything that made them deserve to get shot, and all of the deaths were tragic. But I've responded to Christina Taylor Greene's death in a way I've never responded to any other similarly publicized tragedy. I hear her nam…

As many of my readers know, I'm on sabbatical. But I had volunteered to preach this past weekend at a colleague's church on her Sunday off. I had volunteered a new sermon topic, rather than a "canned" one, but one I knew I would use again in my own congregation later. I was most of the way done with my sermon, a sermon on the future of Unitarian Universalism, and had two parts left to go -- one was on the work our denomination has done on immigration reform, particularly in Arizona, and then the conclusion.That's where I had left things on Friday night. When I got back on the computer late Saturday afternoon, I checked into Facebook, and was hit by the news of the tragic shootings in Tucson, Arizona. I knew I couldn't complete my sermon as I had planned, and was going to have to change it. Because I wasn't preaching in my own church, I didn't completely scrap the sermon, but as you'll see below it was greatly changed.

We offer up our prayers of comfort and care
for all those in shock and sorrow, pain and fear,
with the hopes that the goodwill of the many reaching out across the earth
will be a balm for those affected by the ill-will of the fear.
We pray for the families of the dead, for the wounded and their families,
and for the hearts grown cold and bitter against their neighbors,
that they may all feel the earth's nurture, humanity's overwhelming respect for life,
and the loving arms of that which is most high and most deep.
While we cannot change what has been wrought,
we can protest when life is treated callously
and we can pray and love and care
for those whose lives are cut too short,
for those whose world is filled with violence and hate,
and for the rising sun of a world filled with renewed conviction
to stand true to our God of Love,
true to our native land, home of those yearning to breathe free,
true to our principle of…

So, here's the scenario: I'm at my daughter's dance studio for the first time, waiting for her to finish dance class. It's the first time, because I've been teaching at the same time, so my husband has been taking her. Another mom comes in and signs her daughter up for class for the first time, greets the teacher warmly with words that indicate that she knows the teacher from outside of the studio, and then sits down at a table with two other parents whom it seems she's also old friends. I'm not at the table, I'm about half the room away, but I'm the only other person in the room except for the woman at the desk who keeps running in and out on errands.

The group at the table start talking about Facebook and Facebook etiquette and friends defriending them because of political differences. I'm interested, but the first time I start to react to the conversation they react like I would be intruding, so I revert to my introvert self and study my…

The Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Landrum is a Unitarian Universalist minister, artist, writer, parent, and justice advocate. The opinions expressed here are solely her own, and do not represent the views of the church or any other organization she serves.